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From commentor Gravie:
Here’s my latest project. We got two pallets of landscape stone last fall and now have one left. I’m edging all of our garden beds, front yard first, back yard next. I might get finished in about 2015. It’s backbreaking (and hand-scouring) labor, but I really like the way it looks.
My sturdy generic dark-purple irises are in full bloom right now, many of them in the front-yard raised beds I hand-built, slowly and painfully and not very well, out of concrete landscaping blocks. (Yes, there should be photos to prove it, but it’s been rainy and cloudy all week.) Almost a decade of planting and weathering has disguised their unprofessonal origins, and instead of a sad uneven patch of crabgrassy “lawn”, I can count on an annual bounty of color proceeding from early lavender-blue creeping phlox to the irises to a riot of peach and cream and apricot daylilies, set off by a handful of miniature roses and brief bursts of color from violas and dianthus.
Who else has hardscaping / landscape-remaking projects they’d like to show off — or at least talk about — to the rest of us?
WereBear
Lawns, and the mowing thereof, are my least favorite growing things.
Raven
Our backyard is on a pretty decent slope so we have terraced. Years ago a neighbor had ordered a huge truckload of granite and had a large amount left over. I paid $100 for 15 truck loads and moved them by myself while I was between jobs. We built walls, side walks, gardenscapes an even a driveway with 4x12x24 slabs.
Raven
Here’s a couple of shots of the Bohdi in the yard with the granite.
DecidedFenceSitter
I’m planning on building a firepit in my backyard along the lines of this one.
bob h
I have a massive flush cut stump (about 4 ft. diameter) from an oak tree removal in the center of my backyard, and would love ideas for what to do with it. I have a picture of it, but don’t know how to upload a photo. I like what you have done with the rocks.
RAVEN
@bob h: Here are some options.
http://www.urbanforestrysouth.org/resources/library/Citation.2004-05-28.0701/file_name
Maude
The Azaleas have been in full bloom for over a week.
The Hostas are very happy with this weather and are getting very large.
I saw lovely long stemmed Daisies that are annuals,in someone’s garden They really stood out.
cmorenc
BTW: if you’re going to be mulching beds adjacent to lawn areas, you’re better off using hardwood mulch rather than pine mulch (e.g. pine nuggets), because the latter leaches acidic runoff into the lawn, altering the soil ph in a less friendly way to many grass varieties. Obviously, grass can grow adjacent to pine trees (they’re ubiquitous in the south); nevertheless not all grass varieties are as happy with this arrangement as they would be with less acidic influence to their soil, fescue being a prime example.
becca
We have really gone all in this year, after a hiatus from gardening last year.
Our daughter and SIL moved in and baby Lily joined us soon after. Things were pretty hectic, but we have a decent rhythm going now and have made up for lost time.
The pole beans are starting to climb the tepees in the front yard raised beds. I’m getting strawberries now, with the help of netting to keep the birds and squirrels at bay.
In the back, we planted more pole beans to climb the corn and summer squash around the corn patch. Variation of the Three Sisters method. Beans are amazing. They give back the nitrogen the corn sucks from the soil. The squash acts as mulch.
And I have zinnias and sunflowers coming up everywhere, even my neighbor’s yard and sidewalk cracks. There’s a Dr Seuss quality to zinnias that I just love- just made for whimsy.
ThresherK
Backbreaking labor?
Yes, but done once, it’ll be there covering up how many square feet for how long?
Think of all the weeding, planting, etc that attractively prevents in the future. More time and mindspace to spend on another part of the yard, or to sit back and enjoy the proverbial fruits of your labor.
Poopyman
Don’t let cloudy weather put you off from taking pics. The vast majority of pics I see in gardening magazines are shot on cloudy days or in evening light.
As for hardscape, I’m using the fact that we’re on a tidal river with no native stone as an excuse not to use it. I laid a flagstone patio by myself back in my late 30’s 20 years ago, and don’t really need any more stonework experience.
ThresherK
@Poopyman: Yep. I am not energetic enough to get my yard into BH&G (see above) but I know that bright sunshine beaming straight down is great for visibility, yet not great for photos, and the simpler one’s camera and software, the moreso.
The last hour before sunset (and if ambitious, after dawn) is called “the magic hour” by photographers for a reason.
gravie
@ThresherK: Yep, that’s my motivation. Also, it looks pretty great if I do say so myself. I just have to keep my OCD nature in check, otherwise I’ll be arranging and rearranging rocks to get them just so until the end of time.
RossInDetroit
OT, but in case anyone hasn’t noticed, Balloon Juice got back-linked by Kthug over the hurt feelings issue. Bonus Muppets clip at the link.
ThresherK
@gravie: Perhaps a little stint on a chain gang would take care of that OCD.
Do you have any defining characteristics which would catch note of Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County?
A Humble Lurker
President’s speech in Ohio is up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K86sztC1ZUs
One of my favorite bits is around nine minutes in. You’ll know it when you hear it.
Southern Beale
We’re pretty much done with the hardscaping but yeah we’ve done tons of it, it really gives a nice look to the place. I’ll have to put up some fresh garden blogging, this is about 2 weeks old.
It’s been unbelievably hot for this time of year.
And I dunno, but I bought a ton of praying mantis pods, you attach them to branches and whatnot … they say it can take 4-6 weeks to hatch so maybe I’m being a little impatient here but they fuckers still haven’t hatched. I hope I didn’t get ripped off.
jeffreyw
@Southern Beale: When they hatch, you need to set some ground rules. There will be some backsliding. I don’t mind the praying mantids, but I do draw the line on the preaching kind.
RossInDetroit
We did all of our heavy landscaping 5 years ago and were surprised to get an additional benefit. Chipmunks love the rockwork. Pretty much the minute the nooks and crannies appeared they moved in. I like having chipmunks around but there’s a downside. They dig everything up, so potted plants placed outdoors have to be protected against their excavations.
Today we’ll drag our ficus plants outdoors for the summer.
gelfling545
My back garden looks fabulous after last week’s blitz by the family. A shady section has been mulched over & will now be an area for potted plants and a place for my garden swing where Snarla D. Dogg likes to take an afternoon nap. The area formerly got more sun & some of the plants were now not doing so well in their shadier situation. Another area just by the pond has also been dug out & mulched for placement for the chaise longue (for my nap – although I can never sit still for long in the garden.) All this mulching has been in aid of cutting down the maintenance done by my aging self. Shrubs have been inserted in a few places where I used to put annual plants & vegetables and later this month the 2 areas remaining for seasonal planting are being raised to a height of 18 inches to make the tending easier.
In bloom now are the lilacs. Mr. Lincoln lost the top of each bloom cluster to late frost but the Moscow Beauty, which blooms just slightly later, is doing nicely. Poppies are ready to pop any moment and the deutzia is just opening & looks like it has little white pearls on the branches. I need to divide the pinks at the edge of the pond today before they take over the earth. Yarrow is on the list to be divided too and the herb bed needs to be clipped back & revived although it may be moved entirely at some point. I just don’t have a convenient spot for my cooking herbs. Happy Sunday to all.
Poopyman
@RossInDetroit: Hmmm. It that makes me wonder what “a snarling mass of vitriolic vicious jackals” might look like in Muppet form.
keestadoll
@Southern Beale: Mantis are masters of prepping the bed with pillows to make a passer-by assume someone is still sleeping there. The coccoon looks no different post-hatch. Chances are, they’re out and about already and doing their thing and you won’t notice until you go out to prune one day and one ends up sitting on your hand.
keestadoll
The previous owners of our house had a real lust for rocks and weed mat. Sure it makes maintenance easy, but when you want to change something–anything–it’s a bitch and a half, so I’m not a fan of rocks right now. Just putting in three vulcan magnolias was like hard labor at a quarry. That being said, the long term plan for the front yard is to go lawn-less and to do flag stone paths, defined beds, etc. Lawns are great for picnicing on. Beyond that,they are a maintenance burden.
PurpleGirl
@RossInDetroit: It seems that Professor K reads BJ on regular basis, I’ve seen other references to us from him. I can’t prove it (I don’t have the motivation to go back through his archives) but since he received the Nobel, he has gone with his geeky side in terms of cultural references and music clips. I think it’s great.
(ETA: This is in his blog, not the columns.)
Walker
My apple trees are being installed at my new house on Friday, so nothing to report until then.
But, damn, is it hard to get heritage apple trees these days. If you want a Macintosh or a Honeysuckle or a Fuji (which you have to pay a one time royalty fee for!), no problem. But ask for something like a Red Rome and they look at you funny. Fortunately, my neighbor at my old house had a Red Rome and was willing to give me a branch to graft.
Though I am not sure whether I should be reassured by how excited my landscaper was to do this graft — because he had not been asked to do one in over a decade.
WereBear
Maybe you be the vanguard of a trend, that’s all :)
For instance, after many years of slavish devotion to Granny Smiths, because they were reliably crisp in a world of mealy alternatives; I have been seeing Cripps Pink and the delightful Honeycrisp appearing in my back-of-beyond local supermarkets. We are an apple growing area; about time.
RSA
I posted a few pictures and an essay about building dry stone walls on my blog a few years ago. They’re short retaining walls, made out of what the stone quarry calls Tennessee field stones; I still like ’em.
StringonaStick
My goal had always been to have a home where we could have zero lawn and lots of natives; I had always assumed that meant living in the CO mountains, but here in a foothills town we managed to find a situation where wiping out the grass was esthetically pleasing instead of just a straight property line of edging fighting back the neighbor’s grass. The back yard is fronted (backed?) by designated Open Space, filled with Mountain Mahogany, Rabbit Brush, some cactus, and definitely some rattle snakes; there never was an attempt to have grass there since half of it is sandstone.
I had the good fortune of working for a friend’s xeriscape landscaping business 20 years ago, and its been an obsession ever since. Both front and back yards look green, are filled with plants and flowers, but require little extra irrigation – a mere fraction of what grass requires (I installed a drip system so it is even more efficient). Though this year the last frost was 1 month too early and it is already way too hot here, but xeric plants are super tough and will get through the heat much better than I will. Water shortages are a problem in Colorado, and this is only going to get worse unfortunately.
There was some major hardscaping here when we moved in, and I added to it (hired some since I can’t deal with the weight of building a stack-stone wall – knees and all that). Because of the narrow path to the back yard and a rock wall there, I had to haul all the pea gravel in by hand. Pea gravel is THE mulch to have for xeriscapes. It took two 5 gallon buckets and a handtruck to move over 4 cubic yards of the stuff into the back yard. It also took over 3 weeks and a lot of sore muscles to do this, but it was worth it. The compliments from neighbors and dog walkers are never ending, so I am pleased that I am doing my part to show that yards don’t have to be solid grass to look great, especially in this water-short part of the country.
hilzoy
I’m finally going to get my back yard graded, so that it stops washing away into the alley.
But the real reason I’m commenting is to say: back in a previous house, I had a patio put in, and when I was talking it over with the contractor, he said something about my hardscape. I had never heard this term before, and since he sort of mumbled, I heard it as: your heartscape. I thought this was a wonderful term, though I wouldn’t have thought of it as applying to my proposed patio, and I spent a while, in odd moments, trying to figure out: just what and where *is* my heartscape? I was so disappointed when I realized the truth.
Beth
Here in CA, I’ve got a small Valley Oak on a front corner of my suburban lot. These trees grow HUGE pretty quickly, and it will soon begin shading over our front lawn.
Meanwhile, I’m taking a piecemeal, sneaky approach to supplanting said scraggly lawn,by planting bushes, flowers, groundcovers, herbs, and pretty much everything, in a survival-of-the-fittest festival we can watch from our window.
Nothing much will grow here, anyway, so it’s natives or pretty much nothing. I predict the lawn will sigh with relief, give up quickly, and all will revert to natives and mediteranean herbs very soon.
Even my Homeowner’s Assoc. has bowed to reality, now allowing total front lawn replacement without asking permission. It just makes sense here.
I’m drooling over all the beautiful hardscape projects. My body’s too old for that type of labor now I’m afraid. But wow, just lovely, folks!
RossInDetroit
@keestadoll:
I’m no fan of grass lawns. The dog loves it but it’s a chore, and visually boring.
Our front ‘yard’ was a 40′ half-circle of gravel and evergreens between the sidewalk and a circle drive. It looked sterile and stark. One summer I dug out the gravel and took out the weed barrier. In went topsoil and compost. Then I laboriously planted it with vinca minor transplants from another yard area. Next year: lush green and vigorous growth in place of the old gravel. It was 3 weeks of grinding labor but it really paid off. We get frequent compliments on our landscaping. And the total cost was $200 for the soil and a few dollars for fertilizer.
feebog
Mrs Feebog surprised me yesterday. While I was out playing golf, she attacked the overgrown plants around two of our orange trees. She also wants to toss the old ugly plastic furniture we had on the patio between the trees and I have succumbed. Right now she is out getting more supplies and we are going to continue sprucing up the back yard. Not sure why, because we are having a small addtion to the back of the house and the whole area is going to be a mess for months. Oh well…
opie jeanne
@jeffreyw: Genius, as usual.
We just named ours Binky. She’s smiling for the camera:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/snowwhite/47156927/
Linkmeister
Who’s got an idea for cleaning plumeria sap off a composite deck (Trex)? Here’s a pic of said tree with further explanation. I’ve tried Simple Green both diluted and concentrated, sprayed on it and scrubbed. So far, nothing takes it off.